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About this Event

About the Book
Coming out in South Africa … At what cost? All his life Kabelo Mosala has been the perfect child to his doting absent parents, who show him off every chance they get. Both his parents and his small community look forward to him coming back after medical school and joining his father’s practice. They also plan to give him the perfect township wedding. But Kabelo’s one wish has always been to get as far away from the township as he possibly can and never come back. A few weeks before he leaves for university, however, he forms a close bond with Sediba, one of his childhood friends, confirming his long-held suspicion that he is gay. Their relationship is thrown into turmoil by social pressures and conflicting desires, and it starts to look as if they can’t be together. But against all odds the two young men make their way back to each other, risking scorn from the community that raised them.In her characteristic, beautifully modulated voice, with razor-sharp clarity, Kagiso Lesego Molope tackles an urgent issue in her country of birth.

About the Author
Kagiso Lesego Molope was born and raised in Mabopane, a township outside of Pretoria, South Africa and is the author of numerous highly-praised novels. Dancing in the Dust (2002), was the first book by a South African of African decent to make the IBBY list and is on school curriculas in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The Mending Season (2006) was runner-up for the Percy Fitzpatrick Prize in 2012 and was also added to the school curriculum in South Africa, and her third novel, This Book Betrays My Brother (2012) won the Percy Fitzpatrick Prize for Youth Literature. Her new novel, Such a Lonely, Lovely Road has been chosen by the CBC as one of 24 books to watch for fall, 2018, as well as one of 18 Must-read books for 2018. Join Professors Nduka Otiono (IAS) and Susanne Klausen (History and IAS) who will be co-interviewing Kagiso about her latest novel and life as a South African writer living in Canada. Paperback copies of her novel will be available for purchase.